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ExceedingHegelandLacan:
DifferentFieldsof Pleasurewithin
FoucaultandIrigaray
SHANNON WINNUBST
their grip. A "clean break"is neither desirablenor possible. Given this pre-
dicament, and given the kind of hypervigilance that it calls for-that is, a
hypervigilance about not reinscribing,and thus embedding yet further,the
very kinds of conceptual constraints that poststructuralistfeminists hope to
elude, to thwart, to disrupt-the ways in which categories and conceptual
distances are erected withinpoststructuralistfeminism continue to puzzleme.
An exemplarof such a conceptual distancing is found in the Anglo-Ameri-
can readingsof the work of Luce Irigarayand Michel Foucault. Determined,
and perhaps over-determinedas I will suggest, as operating out of mutually
exclusive discourses,these two thinkers and the styles of thinking that they
have spawned are rarelybrought together in any attempt to engage2their in-
tersections and divergences.3The discussions,brief and combative, are most
often constrained by the frame of the boxing ring, wherein the writer aligns
her/himself from the outset with the competitor who is clearly destined to
triumph,to trampleover the other-an odd metaphorics,to say the least, for
both feminist and poststructuralist attempts to move beyond the power
configurationsof strictly dyadic logics. I am wonderinghere whether this dis-
tance between Irigarayand Foucault,particularlyas a combative or dismissive
distance, might indicate something more worrisome,something more insidi-
ous. I am wondering whether it might indicate a reinscriptionof the phallic
field and its erection of concepts and categories withinthe fields of poststruc-
turalistfeminism.
And so let us returnfor a while to that field of phallic pleasureand desire.
How does it operate?A fair question, given its gridlikeperformanceof singu-
lar positions and demarcated-active and passive-roles.
cises through the registersof both the real and the symbolic:"It can be said
that this signifieris chosen because it is the most tangible element17in the real
of sexual copulation, and also the most symbolic in the literal (typographical)
sense of the term, since it is equivalent there to the (logical) copula. It might
also be said that, by virtue of its turgidity,it is the image of the vital flow as it
is transmittedin generation"(1977, 287). While Lacanproceedsto insist that
the phallus is not reducible to the penis18(a crucial point to which I shall
return later), Lacan nevertheless allows for a metaphoricalrelation between
the sexual and logical acts of copulation. Given that both physical and men-
tal acts are effects of language-i.e., effects of the play of signifiers-the privi-
leged signifierof one field should resembleor mirrorthe privilegedsignifierof
the other field. Furthermore,as Heidegger tells us, the privilege that Lacan
thereby grantsyet again to the role of the copula ensuresthe continuous re-
inscription of western metaphysics in that field of signifiers.In reading the
phallus as possessingthe power of the copula, Lacan easily elevates it to the
signifierof signifiersin the field of traditionalwestern metaphysics.
Lacan'smetamorphosisof the Hegelian Concept thus begins to emerge, as
the phallus assumesa foundationalrole that mirrorsthe one Hegel ascribesto
the Concept. This mirroringbetween the symbolic and the real, however, is
more than a mere structuralsimilarity.In readingthe symbolic act of the logi-
cal copula through the real act of sexual copulation, a particularcriterion
emergesas the indication of the power of the phallus:visibility. The phallus,
particularlyas read through the embodiment of the penis, can be seen. It is
because it is "the imageof the vital flow"and "byvirtue of its turgidity" (Lacan
1977, 287; emphasisadded)that the phallusmeritsbeing chosen as the signifier
of signifiers.19Thus, two crucial, mutuallyconstituting shifts occur.
First,it by virtue of its visibility that the penis, the phallic organ, is priv-
is
ileged in the act of sexual copulation. Simultaneously,however, this act of
sexual copulation representsthe metaphysical-logicalact of copulation. The
privilegingof visibility,which both groundsand is groundedby the epistemol-
ogy of representation,must then operate acrossboth registersof the real and
the symbolic. That is, insofaras the possibility of staging the Truthrelies on
and simultaneously re-enforces the privileged status of sight, of seeing the
Truth,Lacan inscribesthe full apparatusof the metaphysicsof representation
in his readingsof both the real and the symbolic. Lacan'sdeployment of the
Hegelian Concept in the figureof the phallus thus inscribesthe crucial crite-
rion of visibility as a necessary demarcation of privileged-i.e., phallic per
Lacan and philosophical per Hegel-ontologies and epistemologies. Conse-
quently,despite all of Hegel'sdiatribesagainst"picture-thinking,"conceptual
thinking blursonce again into the metaphysicsof representation:the phallus
may not be reducible to the penis, but the penis does representthe phallus.20
Thus, the classic privileging of sight and the dominant ontology and episte-
Shannon Winnubst 19
DISCURSIVEORIGINS,PERFORMATIVE
TRUTHS:FOUCAULT'SEXCESSES
prophesied the future, not merely announcing what was going to occur, but
contributing to its actualevent, carryingmenalongwithit and thus weaving itself
into the fabric of fate" (1972, 218; emphasis added). In Hesiod's time, the
truthresidedin what discoursedid, in what and how it performedits meaning.
Only a centurylater,however, as Foucaultwrites,"thehighest truthno longer
residedin what discoursewas, nor in what it did:it lay in what wassaid"(1972,
218). The criterionof a "true"discourseshifted from its performativepoweras
a ritualizedact that affectedboth participantsand onlookers to its referential
form as an exacting mirror-i.e., a concept or a conceptual representation-
of the object of its enunciation. The referential character of language, pre-
cisely through its denunciation of power as a constitutive site of meaning,
triumphsover the performativepower of discourse, and discourse itself be-
comes unhinged-rather permanently in the wester history of thinking-
fromthe exercise of power.Or so the historyof westernphilosophersand their
hiding of this phallic desire and pleasurewould have us believe.
Where does Foucault go from here? How does he attempt to expose and
simultaneouslyto avoid this "repression"of the phallic? How does he exceed
this phallic field of desire and pleasure,of truth and its disavowalof power?
This placement of discourse,as an event intrinsicallytied to power,prior
to the emergence of the Platonic tradition,gives Foucaultthe tools to display
how discourse(langage)precedes-not only historicallybut also ontologically-
language (langue). If discoursesare rendered meaningful through their per-
formativepower (which Foucaultshows throughouthis work), then concepts,
which in turn give representationsof the true, metaphysical nature of "re-
ality,"no longer hold the primaryontological status that the dominant tra-
dition of western philosophy proclaims-or, as we see now, decrees. To the
contrary,this "discourseof metaphysics"is one discourse,one articulationof a
singularnetwork of power constellations that proclaimsitself as "the true":it
is the exclusive discourse erected by the singularpower of the phallus. The
Platonic23disposition towardslanguage as a medium to be willfully manipu-
lated to give the truestpossible approximationof the transcendentalnatureof
things-i.e., to imitate, to mime, or to representthe Forms-is no longer the
immutable"truth"of language.It is one historical emergenceof a discourse,24
of a network of strugglingpracticesand conflicting power constellations, that
hides its intrinsic connection to (phallic) power and thereby proclaims it-
self-through a quintessentiallypowerfulperformance-not the truediscourse,
but simply, "the Truth."Phallic desire thereby defines the field of language
and scripts the roles of pleasure within it: the singular form of conceptual
knowledge becomes the consummatingact.
Again following in the Nietzschean heritage, Foucault attempts to turn
this discourseof the truth upon itself and to examine this desire that resides
silently within it. Of course, this is no easy task:the continual maskingof this
Shannon Winnubst 21
will, this desire, is the very condition of possibilityof the truth as proclaimed
(e.g., as objective, as universal,as transcendental,as neutral-both political-
ly and sexually-as conceptual). This is the breakfrom Hesiod. As Foucault
writes, "truediscourseno longer respondsto desire or to that which exercises
power in the will to truth" (Foucault 1972, 219). To seek and to speak the
truth is now simply our nature-and the nature of our language (langue).As
Nietzsche alreadyrealized, the questions, "Why truth?Why not rather un-
truth?"(Nietzsche 1972, 15) are merely the meaninglessbabble of the soph-
ists.And the sophistshave been routed:"Truediscourse,liberatedby the nature
of its formfrom desire and power,is incapableof recognisingthe will to truth
which pervadesit; and the will to truth, having imposed itself upon us for so
long, is such that the truth it seeks to reveal cannot fail to mask it" (Foucault
1972, 219). Foucault'slater spin on the logic of repressionoperates in this
same relation:true discourserepressesits will and desirefor truth only to have
that will and desireproliferate,endlessly,within the discourseof the true.The
power of the discourseof the true, significantlynot unlike the power of the
logic of repressionand perhapseven the logic of Freudianpsychoanalysis,per-
petuates itself through its own denial of its will, through its own denial of its
desire-its phallic, infinite, and impossibledesire.
This then becomes one of the primarythemes of Foucault'sHistoryof Sexu-
ality, Volume1 (1978), where he shows how the logic of "the RepressiveHy-
pothesis" operates through a denial of its actual, material effects. In these
termsof language(langue)and discourse(langage),the RepressiveHypothesis
worksthrougha claim to language,to an ontological state of being that defines
absolutely and transcendentallythe normal state of a human's(interestingly
neutered) sexuality. It gains its power through its silent and hidden inscrip-
tion of the heterosexual, conjugal, procreativecouple as the naturalnorm of
human sexuality-an inscription that it must not make explicit and cannot
riskexposing if it is to representit as, simply,the Truth.Mirroringthe mecha-
nisms of the discourseof the True,the RepressiveHypothesiscan only gain its
power through its consistent denial and disavowalof any such power:it is not
a historicalor political discourse,it is speakingthe truenatureof human sexu-
ality; it is not a powerfuldiscourse,it is language;the desire that drives it is
not specificallyand exclusively phallic desire, it is human desire. Most of all,
it is not a performativediscoursethat producessexual subjects,it is a transpar-
ent representationof the Truthof human sexuality.
The dispersedand multiple effects of Foucault'swork in all three volumes
of TheHistoryof Sexuality(1978) thus performthe discursivity-e.g., the pow-
ers, struggles,incoherencies, multiplicities of meanings-that both surrounds
and groundsthis alleged univocity. That is, the effects of Foucault'stexts ren-
derthis self-proclaimedabsolutelogic-this langue-one discourse,one langage,
among the complex matrix of multiple discourseson sexuality proliferating
22 Hypatia
FLUIDSTYLES,MESSYBODIES:IRIGARAY'S
EXCESSES
that the feminine can be expressedin the formof a concept is to allow oneself
to be caught up again in a system of 'masculine' representations,in which
women are trappedin a systemof meaning which serves the auto-affectionof
the masculinesubject"(1985c, 122-23). The concept, as we have seen, is one
of the strongholds of phallogocentric thinking. It is that exemplaryphallic
structurethat allows strict definition, clear demarcation,and precise territo-
rial markers.In Irigaray'sre-signifyingof the tradition'sconcepts, therefore,
she is working not to construct new concepts but to dismantle this strong-
hold, this fortress,internally.As MargaretWhitford explains, "[s]heis point-
ing to the way in which concepts can themselves be used as part of a defence
system, in which case countering them with other concepts merely colludes,
it does not dismantle the defence"(Whitford 1991, 37). In analyzingthe for-
mal structuresof men'sand women'sdiscourses,therefore,Irigarayis not claim-
ing a conceptual-or universal27-account of the linguistic structuresof male
and female language (langue);rather,she is performingyet another exposure
of the sexual difference that is otherwise ignored, silenced, avoided in the
phallic resistance to the sexualizedcharacterof discourse(langage).
For example, Irigarayfocuses on the function of the neuter in French and
the waysthat it signifiesan inert, transcendentalnature(see "TheThree Gen-
res"[1991] and "Women'sDiscourseand Men'sDiscourse"[1993b]). Through
Irigaray'sreadingof the everydayphrasessuch as il pleut, il neige,il vent, and il
tonne,we become sensitized to the animate and forceful characterof such a
nature. It is not an abstraction:it is a physicalforce that moves and blows and
makes loud noises. This force touches us. Nature is not a neutral being tran-
scendent to us: it is not a concept. Nature engages us bodily. Why then not
articulateour engagements in a languagethat speaksour bodily,subjective-
sexual-markings? What bodily markis this neutralityhiding?Who produced
it? Again, the phallus veils its markingsin the effort to perpetuateits power:
"Thisorderof laws claims to be neutral, but it bearsthe marksof he who pro-
duces them" (1991, 14).
Irigaray'sworkon the linguisticstructuresof contemporaryspokendiscourses
thus uncovers the subtle workingsof the phallus in and on language.Particu-
larly in her numerousanalysesof the sexed valuations of nouns (e.g., le soleil
and la lune;un chateauand unemaison;and the morecomplicatedle moissonneur
and the impossibilityof la moissonneuseas anything other than the harvesting
machine28),she showshow such gendereddifferenceseffect a speakingsubject's
locating of her/himself in relation to objects, to verbs, to others, and to the
world. These are but surfaceindicatorsof the ways in which the syntactical
laws of our discourses,while perhaps appearinginnocuous in their alleged
neutrality,effectively foreclose the possibility of a sexed language,the possi-
bility of a feminine or trulymasculinevoice.29Without such workat the level
of utterances (enonciation)and statements (enonces), Irigarayinsists that the
26 Hypatia
DISCOURSESOF PLEASURE
EXPOSINGTHE PHALLUS:DIFFERENT
NOTES
Portions of this paper were presented at the 1997 meeting of The International
Association of Philosophy and Literatureand the 1997 meeting of The Society of
Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.I am gratefulto participants,particularly
to Michael Schwartz,for thoughtful responses and suggestions. I also want to thank
Helene Meyersfor insightfuland provocativediscussionsof this paperat variousstages.
1. In "ThisSex Which Is Not One," Irigaraywrites:"Thus,for example, woman's
autoeroticism is very different from man's. In order to touch himself, man needs an
instrument:his hand, a woman'sbody, language ... " (1985c, 24).
2. For the fruitfulcoining of "engaging"as a new style of reading, see Margaret
Whitford (1991, 25).
3. In most of the recent literature focusing on Irigaray,Foucault either is in-
cluded in an introductorymention of the problematicallyphallogocentricturnof many
Shannon Winnubst 31
Russon, embody "human bodies," not female and male bodies. For an earlier read-
ing-which Russon fails to note-of Antigone,of the Master/Slavedialectic, and of
the processesof bodily habituation (also Russon'stheme) that offersboth a readingof
embodiment as central to Hegel and a critique of Hegel through the play of sexual
difference, see Rosalyn Diprose (1991). Diprose is, interestingly,quite careful to ex-
plain her choice of the pronoun, his, at variousjunctures in her essay.
11. ElizabethGrosz suggeststhat, even if Ferdinandde Saussure'sson became a
psychoanalystunder Freud, Saussure'slectures on semiology and general linguistics
(Saussure1959), which took place from 1906-1911 and werenot publisheduntil 1916,
still post date Freud'sdevelopment of his account of the unconscious in 1900 (Freud
1970). She agreeswith Lacan that "Saussuriansemiology is at best a post hoc knowl-
edge that Freuddid not use at the time of his formulations"(Grosz 1990, 93).
12. See particularly"Functionand Fieldof Speech and Language,"in Lacan(1977).
13. It is crucial to distinguish this "other"from the "Other"that is the true hori-
zon of desire. Again, Grosz'sexplanation is quite helpful: "desireis in principle insa-
tiable. It is alwaysan effect of the Other, an 'other'with whom it cannot engage, in so
far as the Other is not a person but a place, the locus of law, language, and the sym-
bolic" (1990, 67). In so far as desire remainsfastened to the other-i.e., to the other
person-as I am framingit here, desirewill never be sated and the other will alwaysbe
expendable in the endless quest for the Other. For a compelling discussion of this
dynamic as structuringcolonial discourses,see "InteriorColonies: FrantzFanon and
the Politics of Identification,"in Diana Fuss (1995).
14. For a concise discussion of the complex interplays among desire, de-
mand, and need, see Grosz(1990, 59-67). Fora discussionof how desire,demand,and
need operate fundamentallyon a phallocentric model of subjectivity,see R. Lee Kress
(1996, 7-9).
15. Lacan writes of this impossibility:"In any case, man cannot aim at being
whole, while ever the play of displacement and condensation to which he is doomed
in the exercise of his functions markshis relation as a subject to the signifier"(Lacan
1977, 287).
16. For a discussion of how this distinction between "having"or "being"the
phallus characterizessexual difference for Lacan, see Grosz (1990, 116-22 and 131-
37). Lacan himself also describesthis central function of the phallus in determining
sexual difference: "But one may, simply by reference to the function of the phallus,
indicate the structuresthat will govern the relationsbetween the sexes. Let us say that
these relationswill turn arounda 'to be' and 'to have,' which, by referringto a signifier,
the phallus, have the opposed effect, on the one hand, of giving reality to the subject
in this signifier,and, on the other, of derealizingthe relations to be signified"(Lacan
1977, 289). Parveen Adams (1992) argues that both of these positions represent a
defense against castration that exists at the level of identification, at the level of the
imaginary,and thus, within the phallic order.Her suggestion that then all norms or
identifications-regardless of their "feminist"content-are part of the phallic order
resonates with the ways in which I am suggesting that both Irigarayand Foucault,
resisting the move to conceptualize norms, exceed the phallus. Butler (1993) also
argues that disrupting the boundary between "being"and "having"the phallus, as
performedby her "lesbian phallus,"effectively displaces the hegemonic symbolic of
heterosexist sexual difference.
Shannon Winnubst 33
17. Jacqueline Rose's translation brings this criterion of the phallus into more
direct contact with the criterion of the Hegelian Concept. She writes, "[o]ne might
say that this signifieris chosen as what stands out as most easily seized upon" (Lacan
1982, 82), thus characterizingthe phallus as privilegedbecause it can be conceptual-
ized-it is begreiflich.
18. The question of the connection and simultaneous disconnection between
the Lacanian phallus and penis is a central hinge for feminist appropriationsand/or
disavowals of Lacan. Appropriately,it has been the subject of much critical discus-
sion. (See also note 20 below.) For a clear discussion of Lacan's(failed) attempts to
disentangle the phallusfrom the penis and its relation to questionsof essentialismand
constructionism, see Fuss (1989, 7-10 and 65-66). While Fuss finally suggests that
Lacan'sphallus continually risks essentialism in its conjuring of images of the penis,
Charles Bemheimer argues provocatively that the penile referent in the Lacanian
phallus could in fact disavow any such essentialism when read through the variety of
shapes, sizes, and colors of living penises-including both the flaccid and the erect
(1992). Bemheimer's essay operates from a point of departuresimilar to Grosz'sat-
tempts to articulate a non-phallocentric male morphology(Grosz 1989), which I de-
velop later in the essay.
19. Of course, the veiling and unveiling of the phallus assumemythical propor-
tions, both in the ancient rituals that Lacan refersto (1977, 287) and in the latent
homoeroticism of phallocentric cultures that Irigarayexposes; but this can be read
easily enough through the Hegelian fear and suspicion of immediacy.Thus, just as the
Concept requirescareful dialectical mediation before arrivingat its true, self-deter-
mining form, so too must the phallus undergoconstant mediation-through language
and its transformationof an object into a signifier, through property,through the
exchange of women-before arrivingat its true form. See KajaSilverman (1992, 85-
89) for an insightful discussion of this play of the veil in Lacan'stext through its
historical referencesto the frescoes of the Villa of the Mysteriesin Pompeii.
20. For both a compelling argumentfor this position and a thorough rebuttalof
secondarysourcescontending otherwise, see Silverman (1992). While Silvermanrec-
ognizes that recent theory has benefited greatlyfrom Lacan'sdistinction between the
penis and the phallus (a point that I will develop later in the essay), we must not read
this distinction as a sharp separation. Attention to this logic of representationthat
still binds the phallus to the penis may,as she argues,sufficientlycall into question its
privilege and expose-unveil-the play of sexual difference in Lacan'stexts. In "The
Lesbian Phallus and the Morphological Imaginary"(Butler 1993), Judith Butler de-
velops the phallus as both symbolizing the penis and disavowing this status as an
imaginaryeffect. For Butler,this disjunction allows for the possibilitiesof transferring
the phallus to other body parts,thus creating the possibilityof the lesbian phallus.For
my purposeshere, the phallus'ssimultaneousconnection to and disconnection from
the penis-a knot that is ontologically impossible to unravel-performs the double
bind that conditions both Irigaray'sand Foucault'sattemptsto exceed the phallic field
of the Concept.
21. See Grosz (1990, 123-25) for a detailed version of this argument.
22. Lacan seems to recognize this as a remnant of Freud'stexts that, despite his
implicit critique, he does not fully dismantle. He concludes "The Signification of the
Phallus"with the following (apparentlylaudatory)remarkon Freud'sintuition: "he
34 Hypatia
advances the view that there is only one libido, his text showing that he conceives
it as masculine in nature"(Lacan 1977, 291). While this observationwould seeming-
ly open the door to a feminist critique of the Freudianmetapsychology,Lacan does
not walk through that threshold. Thus, I disagreewith Kress'sconclusion (1996) that
Lacan offers a critique of the phallus as signifier,particularlyas such a claim fails to
identify the ways in which the phallus structuresthe field of conceptualization.
23. I would arguethat this is true of the traditionfollowing Plato, ratherthan the
texts of Plato, where an understandingof the power of language and of discourse is
always present, even if usually cast pejoratively as the power of rhetoric to confuse
and distort the truth.
24. It emerges through the specific struggle of various forces, which Foucault
develops as the properfield of critical genealogy in "Nietzsche, Genealogy, History"
(Foucault 1977, 148-57).
25. This apparent inconclusiveness of Foucault'soften becomes the target of
charges of moral bankruptcy,relativism, or even nihilism. Such critiques, however,
continue to operate on the phallic field of concepts-the field that Foucault'stexts
exceed and thus disrupt.
26. Thus, insofar as "discourse"often gets deployed as a Foucauldianconcept,
Foucault'stexts are read as inherently phallogocentric. I hope to have shown that
such appropriationsfail to read discursivitythrough the performativityof Foucault's
texts. Again, regardingthe machine of Foucault interpretation, I am hoping not to
restore the "originary"meaning of his "primary"texts, but to re-deploy his texts in
directions that exceed the phallic graspof conceptual analyses.
27. Many American social scientists' critiques regarding Irigaray'srather lax
"method"involved in her samplings miss the point that she is not after a universal
comment on some linguistic structure.She states explicitly that she is "not going to
define an ideal model of language(langue)"and does not "wishto establish a fixed and
immutableschema for the production of discourse"(1991, 143).
28. These examples are taken from "Women'sDiscourseand Men'sDiscourse"in
Irigaray(1993b). See also several of the essays in Irigaray(1985a).
29. Fromthis perspective,the task of uncovering the sexed characterof discourse
is all the more difficult in non-Romantic languages, where the gendering of nouns
does not exist. In response to criticisms that her work applies only to French or Ro-
mantic languages,Irigarayhas begun to do fieldworkin non-Romantic languages.See
ElizabethHirsh and Gary Olson (1995) for a samplingof this work.
30. For a compelling discussion of such possibilities in the reconfiguringtowards
fluid desires, see chapters 7 and 8 in Grosz (1989).
31. She recuperatesnot only the feminine body or the non-phallocentric mascu-
line body, but also the body itself, which the specular economy has erased. Just as
Lacan'sphallus is not reducibleto the penis, so too Irigaray'srecuperatingof the body
is not reducible exclusively to the female morphology.If the phallus is not reducible
to the penis, then the non-phallic is not contained strictlywithin the non-penile, and
Irigaray'sreconfiguringof morphologyis not contained strictly within the non-penile
body. In exceeding phallocentrism, Irigarayalso exceeds such logics of containment.
32. For the most explicit discussion of the emergence of the specific Socratic-
Platonic tradition, see the last chapter of Foucault (1990).
Shannon Winnubst 35
REFERENCES